Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel has revealed that his island nation is bracing for an attack from the US and declared that he is willing to die resisting President Trump.
Since last December, the US has imposed a blockade around Venezuela as part of its Operation Southern Spear effort, and used that to cut off oil supplies to Cuba, which has since plunged further into an energy crisis.
“I don’t think there would be any justification for the United States to launch a military aggression against Cuba, or for the US to undertake a surgical operation or the kidnapping of a president,” Díaz-Canel told NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday, per a translation.
“If that happens, there will be fighting, and there will be a struggle, and we will defend ourselves, and if we need to die, we’ll die, because as our national anthem says, ‘dying for the homeland is to live.’”
The Trump administration has privately signaled to Cuba’s communist government that Díaz-Canel must go, the New York Times reported.
Díaz-Canel, the first pol outside the Castro family to lead the island nation since the Cuban Revolution, has refused to step aside.
